reality in better taste than rubbishy birds or butterflies, or tinsel
ornaments.

"Finally, girls, don't dress at haphazard; for dress, so far from
being a matter of small consequence, is in reality one of the fine
arts,--so far from trivial, that each country ought to have a style of
its own, and each individual such a liberty of modification of the
general fashion as suits and befits her person, her age, her position
in life, and the kind of character she wishes to maintain.

"The only motive in toilet which seems to have obtained much as yet
among young girls is the very vague impulse to look 'stylish,'--a
desire which must answer for more vulgar dressing than one would wish
to see. If girls would rise above this, and desire to express by their
dress the attributes of true ladyhood, nicety of eye, fastidious
neatness, purity of taste, truthfulness, and sincerity of nature, they
might form, each one for herself, a style having its own individual
beauty, incapable of ever becoming common and vulgar.

"A truly trained taste and eye would enable a lady to select from the
permitted forms of fashion such as might be modified to her purposes,
always remembering that simplicity is safe, that to attempt little and
succeed is better than to attempt a great deal and fail.

"And now, girls, I will finish by reciting to you the lines old Ben
Jonson addressed to the pretty girls of his time, which form an
appropriate ending to my remarks:--

"'Still to be dressed
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed;
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

"'Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace,--
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art,
That strike my eyes, but not my heart.'"

XI

THE CATHEDRAL

"I am going to build a cathedral one of these days," said I to my
wife, as I sat looking at the slant line of light made by the
afternoon sun on our picture of the Cathedral of Milan.

"That picture is one of the most poetic things you have among your
house ornaments," said Rudolph. "Its original is the world's chief
beauty,--a tribute to religion such as Art never gave before and never
can again,--as much before the Pantheon as the Alps, with their virgin
snows and glittering pinnacles, are above all temples made wit